


A Pursuit of Immortality

by driftinglines



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Established Enjolras/Grantaire, M/M, enjolras is apollo, spanish grantaire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-06 10:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17343851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driftinglines/pseuds/driftinglines
Summary: Imagine finding out that your boyfriend is an immortal god who's been purposefully dating your reincarnations exclusively. This really wasn't Grantaire's day.





	A Pursuit of Immortality

**Author's Note:**

> uhh this really got out of hand.
> 
> warning: mention of the holocaust

“Does anything ever happen to you and you just feel like it's happened before in that exact same way?”  
“What?” He opened his eyes to see the dark haired man next to him shoot him a goofy grin, a neatly rolled blunt in his hand. “I'm starting to think all that smoking is actually taking a toll on your sanity, mon coeur”  
Grantaire lightly punched his boyfriend’s shoulder. “I'm serious! You know, like when you're sitting in class and you're like a hundred percent sure you've been in this exact situation before?”  
“Do you mean the time you had to retake a year in high school?”  
“Tonto.”, he muttered and if looks could kill, not even Enjolras’ state of immortality could've saved him now.  
“Okay, okay! You mean like a Deja vu?”  
“That's the word!” Grantaire nodded enthusiastically, beaming with excitement. “Anyways, I've been having a lot of those lately. Especially since you moved in.”  
Enjolras chuckled, hoping that the man at his side wouldn't notice his nervous stare and hitching breath. “Speaking of, wanna help me unpack the rest of my stuff?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.  
Luckily, his wish was granted when Grantaire grabbed his hand and dragged him into their bedroom. 

The room in question, though actually being one of the largest in their flat, seemed awfully small and cramped with boxes of Enjolras’ belongings stacked on top of each other.  
“Alright.”, Grantaire grinned with surprising optimism, “where do you wanna start?”  
“You can start with my books and I'll start with my clothes?”, the blonde man suggested after a brief moment of silence. “Oh, and can you sort them by author and in chronological order, please?” He batted his eyelashes at his boyfriend who was trying (and failing) to keep from laughing.  
“You're weird, honestly.”  
Enjolras chose to ignore that comment and instead smiled, planting a soft kiss on Grantaire's cheek. “Love you, too.”  
Grantaire looked stunned, he'd expected some witty comeback instead of a kiss and an affectionate gaze.  
They had already worked for an hour or so and Enjolras had already moved on to the box filled with stationary, flyers and pictures of past rallies, artworks from both Feuilly and Grantaire, poems written by Jehan and other little things, gifted to him by his friends.  
Grantaire on the other hand, was busy unpacking the second box of books and sorting them into the huge shelf in the corner. “What the fuck. I mean, I knew you had a bunch of books but I had no idea it was that many. Hey, where does this go? There's no author or title.”  
“Just put it first, at the start of the row, I-” Enjolras stopped before he ended the sentence. He owned only one book with no author or title and Grantaire couldn't possibly find it. Fuck.  
“What is this even?”  
“Wait!” Enjolras turned around, trying to grab the book but Grantaire had already opened it and was now staring at the first page, eyes wide with horror.  
“Enj.. what? Is that, is that us?”  
The first page of the black notebook showed a charcoal drawing of the two men, dressed in Greek robes, with Grantaire laying on Enjolras’ chest, staring up at him longingly. The heading above it read “Icarus and Apollo, 140-138 BC” Underneath the drawing, someone had glued a single, carefully crafted feather of thin, delicate bronze with what looked like melted wax at the bottom of it.  
“What is this?”, Grantaire asked again, his voice shaking. “Julien, please. What is this?”  
Enjolras’ voice was silent as he spoke: “It's us.”  
“But how? That's impossible. This isn't really you, is it? I mean you're not, like, a god. Right?” He looked at the drawing.  
It really did look just like them. He even remembered this day. But that couldn't be, right?  
Enjolras didn't answer.  
“Will you please just talk to me?”  
A sob escaped Enjolras’ throat. “It is me. And that is you. Except, it's not. That's an older version of you. The first version of you. Or at least,”, he smiled softly, “it was the first version of you that I met.”  
“You're...you're Apollo. Like, the actual god Apollo. And I used to be…Icarus.”  
As his boyfriend nodded, Grantaire noticed the few tears, rolling down his cheeks. He gently cupped his face with one hand and brushed away a few stray hairs with the other. “Hey… Why'd you never tell me?”  
Enjolras-Apollo managed another smile. “It's not exactly the best way to start a conversation, you know.” He took a deep breath before speaking up again. “The first time I met you, it was a coincidence. You were praying to me one day and I decided to pay you a visit in the Labyrinth. Keep in mind though, I was still a really young god back then, only about four hundred years old. Anyways, we… we fell in love and I stayed with you as often as I could until you and your father fled the Labyrinth. I promised to meet you once you were safe but you… you flew too close to the sun and…” his voice gave out and he started sobbing again.  
“And I died…” Grantaire touched the feather, feeling the hardened wax under his fingertips.  
“‘Taire, I'm so sorry. I never wanted that.”  
Grantaire shook his head. “It wasn't your fault. And honestly,”, he grinned, “flinging myself into the sun, just for the chance of some godly dick? Yeah, that sounds about right.”  
The god laughed. “God, I love you.”  
“I love you too, mi ángel.” Grantaire pulled him closer and connected their lips in a gentle kiss.  
“Do you… wanna go through it maybe?”  
Grantaire nodded, still smiling. “I'd like that.”

They spent the next few hours looking at sketches, paintings and pictures of Apollo, who’d started changing his name with the start of the middle ages, and different reincarnations of Grantaire. Apollo told the stories of how they met and, with his voice breaking a bit more each time, of how he'd lost him.  
They now were looking at a page with the heading “Julien and René, 1832”. Underneath it was a drawing of “Julien” Apollo in a red waistcoat, holding a large piece of red fabric, sitting next to “René” Grantaire wearing a green jacket, a wine bottle in his hand.  
“Apollo? Can I ask you something?”  
“Sure.”  
“What was the worst time you… you know.” his voice was unusually quiet, he didn't dare look in the god's eyes.  
“I lost you?”  
“Yeah.”  
He took a deep breath, sighed and spoke with a shaking voice. “The first time, obviously. And…” he flipped to the next page.  
“Julien and Gabriel, 1938-1941” was the heading. The picture was old and in sepia tones and showed them sitting next to each other in the grass, holding hands and smiling at the camera. Glued underneath it was a pink fabric patch in the shape of a triangle.  
Tears started to well up in Grantaire's eyes. “No.”, he whispered in a choked up voice. He reached out to trace the patch, but pulled his hand back as soon as he touched the fabric, as if it burned his hand.  
For the second time today, tears were rolling down Apollo's cheeks, his eyes puffy and red as he wiped away the tears that were now making their way down his boyfriend’s face.  
After minutes of holding each other in silence, Grantaire flipped to the last filled page.  
The only thing filling the page was the heading: “Julien and Luc, 2016- “  
The lack of another year in the heading made him smile a small, shy smile.

“Huh. You really kept all this. But like, why? I mean it's gotta be extremely painful, seeing these pictures.”  
“It is. But I don't want to forget you. Ever. The decades and centuries I've spent without you were the worst and most draining years of my entire existence. I love you so much and want to spend as much time with you as possible before you-” He didn't dare finish the sentence.  
“Enj. I mean, Apollo. I mean… Mi ángel. I'm so sorry. This is terrible, I don't want you to be hurt just because I'm… Well, mortal. I can't do this to you.”  
“What do you mean?” Apollo’s voice was shaking.  
Grantaire swallowed and squeezed his hand. “I'm sorry. I just, I need to think about some stuff. I can't do this right now.”  
“No, wait. I'm sorry, I completely sprung this on you, this is my fault. Let's just start this conversation again, okay? I really-”  
“Apollo.”  
The god looked not at all godlike at this point. The radiant glow that always seemed to surround him was gone, he looked small and vulnerable. He looked human.  
“I'm sorry, Apollo.”

**Author's Note:**

> r is spanish i will fight anyone on that.
> 
> if you enjoyed this, please tip your local fic writer in kudos and/or comments!


End file.
